#sure he was a living metaphor for the end of piracy but STILL

[cactihut]

i feel conflicted about izzy’s death bc, realistically, death happens, and sometimes a complicated character whose existence began as a villain has an arc that ends in a way that’s tragic but that also frees them from all the guilt they carried with them. the loss is hard & moving but it allows them to move on in every sense

but also! i would’ve hoped the writers could find a way for him to make that transformation & end his arc without needing to die bc this felt like a show that tried to forge its own path outside the established norm

truly no disrespect to the writers or anyone involved, it’s just an interesting choice to follow that common trope for characters like izzy’s who eventually turn good when there was a whole wide world of potential ways for his story to end

[everyscreentoobeseen]

Spoliers

My thoughts on Izzy's unaliving.

First of all. There was probably a better scene for Izzy to get shot in.

I know the crew are stupid but why did they let the peglegged Izzy be in charge of Ricky? It makes narrative sense for Ricky to kill Izzy but again the episode was so short the weight of it had to be cut.

I would of rather it had been Izzy taking a bullet for another character than for it to be Ricky directly but.... whatever.

I think his death is a morbid parallel to Ep 10 when he tells Edward to be Blackbeard again. That scene had weight and his funeral was nice. I'm pretty sure the dilapidated house was Izzy's. So Gentlebeard making it into an Inn is full circle.

I dont think its bury your gays or bury the disabled. It's more about the Golden Age of Piracy/Blackbeard ending metaphor since we dont get to see a real conclusion to the Navy vs Pirate skirmish.

The one thing about pirates is that they still exist even today after all the legends have died. So i think him dying but the Crew continuing after him is symbolic of that.

Real Life Pirate Queen Zheng was born 60 years after 1717. Piracy is not dead, it's just not the same as before. But it lives on, even when your gone.... Queer allegories anyone?

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Beneath a Black Flag

Summary: Having turned to a life of piracy after being betrayed by the Amestrian navy, Captain Roy Mustang and Quartermaster Maes Hughes of the Phoenix are on a mission to find the wreck of the legendary treasure ship Xerxes, hoping to both strike rich and prevent the mythical Philosopher’s Stone from ending up in the navy’s clutches…

Written for the WriYe August Shorts Challenge, and very loosely inspired by Black Sails.

Rated: T

Beneath a Black Flag

Seeing the lights of Port Aerugo always felt like coming home. Even back when he’d been a legitimate navy captain, Roy had always felt more at ease in the rough and ready world of the southern port, with its bars and brothels and black market warehouses, than he had ever done in the more respectable places that his ships had docked in. The Amestrian navy had always adopted a laissez-faire attitude to the place: several attempts to ‘civilise’ it had fallen flat, ending in easy victory for the pirates who made it their base of operations, and humiliation for the navy. 

The Phoenix dropped anchor in the bay and her crew started to disembark, eager for the pleasures of dry land after a long and difficult last haul. Still, the trip had been successful, which had raised people’s spirits no end. 

“Roy? Were you intending on getting off this ship any time soon? Earth to Roy?”

Roy turned from his position gazing out over the Port Aerugo twilight and found Maes behind him, arms folded and an amused expression on his face.

“For someone who lives on the sea, you’re spending a worrying amount of time with your head in the clouds.” Maes came up beside him, leaning on the rail. “What’s eating you this time?”

Roy sighed. “I’m just thinking about the magnitude of what we’ve taken on. Do you ever look at what we’re doing and think ‘this is madness, I should pack it all in and become a tomato farmer instead’?”

“Yes. Frequently. But I know you’ve got a plan, however hare-brained it might be, so I trust you to navigate us through it. I’m not promising that I’m not going to force you into tomato farming as soon as it’s all over, though. You actually will give me a heart attack one of these days.”

“Have I ever got us killed?”

“No,” Maes admitted, “but you can’t deny that we’ve had some very close calls.”

Roy grimaced. He definitely couldn’t deny it, and he would have to admit to being glad that their next sortie would hopefully provide the last piece of the puzzle that they had been chasing for so long and bring with it the reward they desperately sought. All they had to do now was to stay one step ahead of the navy, but that was proving easier said than done.

“Do you ever miss it?” he asked Maes eventually.

“What, the navy?”

“Yes. Well, not the navy specifically. But the time before, when life was less complicated.”

“Was life really less complicated in the navy? It wasn’t as hard and it probably wasn’t quite as constantly dangerous, but complicated? Roy, you of all people know that it was infinitely more complicated back then.” He wrapped an arm around Roy’s shoulders and pulled him in close, pressing a kiss to his temple, and Roy had to smile. “Do you really want to go back to a time when we had to hide?”

In a way, piracy was nothing but hiding, always trying to outfox the navy, but ever since they had started sailing under a black flag, Roy and Maes had never had to hide their relationship or make out that they were something they weren’t. Snatched moments here and there and the ever-present threat of being found out and court-martialed for daring to fall in love had given way to easy acceptance and the closeness that they’d never been allowed before.

“No,” he agreed. “I’d rather have this.”

Maes gave his shoulders a squeeze. “Come on. Let’s go ashore. Everyone else has already left apart from the night watch. I’m beginning to forget what dry land looks like.”

Captain and quartermaster made their way towards the final longboat making preparations for its launch, and soon they were walking through the streets of Port Aerugo. It was a place that never slept, coming even more alive after dark when the drunks started carousing and the brothel girls started touting for business. Roy and Maes were well-known enough not to be bothered by the latter, who just gave them a cheerful wave as they went past and went to try their luck with the other, incredibly willing members of Phoenix’s crew.

As always, their path took them to Madam Christmas’s. Bar and brothel rolled into one, the place had always tried to maintain an air of elegance in an increasingly tawdry world, and above all its other attractions, it would always be a safe place for Roy.

Madam Christmas gave them a nod as they walked in, whisky ready on the counter for them. Roy knocked it back, savouring the burn.

“This is good stuff. Whose prize did you skim this off the top of?”

Madam Christmas laughed. “I got it from Armstrong. The cask was too bloody to be sold on through the warehouse so I took it off her hands for a very reasonable price.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. Oliver Armstrong was known for being absolutely terrifying, but in his experience her reputation preceded her so much that she never needed to resort to bloodshed. Crews saw the Briggs Fortress coming with its black flag flying and they just handed over their manifests with their hands up.

“It’s not like her to make a mess,” Maes commented. “She likes things quick and simple.”

“I’m sure that this one would have been quick and simple too if some idiot hadn’t signed his own death warrant by telling her she ought to be off having babies instead of captaining a pirate ship.

“Ah.” Maes and Roy looked at each other. “Yes, that would definitely do it.”

“I bet she and Riza had a great laugh about it afterwards. Anyway, enough of Armstrong. I take it that your voyage was successful?”

Roy nodded. “Yes. We’re ready to go as soon as Phoenix is prepared for the trip.”

Madam Christmas let out a low whistle. “You really think you’ve found it? I was beginning to believe the nay-sayers who maintain that the lost treasure of Xerxes is just a myth.”

There was a small part of Roy that would admit that he too was beginning to believe the same. The legendary treasure ship had wrecked somewhere in the southern seas decades ago, and so many stories had been built up around it over time that it was difficult to know what was real and what was embellishment, with all the accounts varying wildly. 

Just one thread had remained constant throughout, and that was the thread that Roy had never stopped pulling on. Among the treasures on board the Xerxes was a Philosopher’s Stone.

All alchemists were familiar with the concept of Philosopher’s Stones and Roy was no exception. Rarer than the rubies they resembled, the navy had been trying to get their hands on one for as long as anyone could remember. Whilst Roy didn’t believe the stories of turning lead into gold or producing the elixir of life, he absolutely believed in the stone being used to bypass equivalent exchange and make alchemists’ raw power stronger by tenfold.

Which was why Roy was determined to stop the navy getting anywhere near one by any means necessary.

“Well.” Madam Christmas gave Roy an impressed look. “If you can track it down then more power to you. Metaphorically speaking, of course. I’m well aware of your thoughts on the whole matter. Just as long as you give me a cut of the treasure for giving you bed and board all these years.”

Roy rolled his eyes but he couldn’t deny that it had been a blessing to have a home base that wasn’t floating. There was always a bed waiting for him at Madam Christmas’s, and finishing his second shot of Olivier Armstrong’s filched whisky, he decided it was high time that he made his way there. Maes followed him out of the bar. Tomorrow the real work would begin, prepping the Phoenix for her next and arguably most important journey and charting their course for the fabled location of the Xerxes wreck, but tonight could just be for them, and they could forget the trials they would soon be facing.

X

Roy never slept properly the first night back on dry land after a long voyage, missing the gentle - and sometimes not so gentle - rocking of the ship to lull him off to sleep. He envied Maes, who could drop off anywhere in any position and be completely dead to the world within five minutes. 

He ran his fingertips over the scar on Maes’s chest, too close to his heart for comfort. All pirates had scars, most had many, and they were generally worn as badges of honour for battles survived. This one, though… This one was the reason they were here in the first place, the moment that had started this very long journey towards the Xerxes treasure.

“Stop thinking about it.” Maes caught his wandering hand, opening his eyes and looking up at Roy blearily. “I survived, that’s all that matters.”

Roy rolled over, looking up at the ceiling. He knew that Maes was right, of course, but he couldn’t help thinking about what might have been. It was something he dwelled on often.

Most pirates did not set out to become pirates and Roy was no exception. He had never had any desire to turn to a life of piracy in his younger days. His first interest had always been alchemy, and going into the military as a naval alchemist had seemed like a natural career progression. Every ship in the navy carried an alchemist as standard; it was almost guaranteed job security. Most pirate ships carried at least one as well - Roy had never known whether the navy’s alchemy programme was a response to the pirates or if it was the other way round, but the set up had been established for so long that no one really questioned it. 

He had earned his alchemy license and graduated from the naval academy where he had met Maes and history had been made. They had joined a ship, and Roy was pretty sure that neither of them had intended to look back, despite the constant difficulty and secrecy that had to surround their relationship. 

Life had never been anything close to perfect, but it was as good as Roy thought that they would ever get, and he had been content with it. It had all been going really well until the incident at the admiralty. 

He was pulled out of his train of thought by Maes rolling over on top of him and leaning in for a long kiss.

“You worry too much,” he said softly once he finally let Roy up for air. “And you always seem to blame yourself for things that weren’t anything to do with you.”

“Maes…”

“Oh, shush.” He kissed him again and Roy surrendered into it, closing his eyes and wrapping his arms around Maes’s back to pull him in closer. It was easy to push the uneasy thoughts to the side when they were like this, Maes warm and solid and very alive in his arms reminding him that despite what might have happened, it did not actually happen, and the past wasn’t a place that it was healthy to stay in for too long. 

After all, when it came down to it, they would never have found out about the navy’s plans for the Philosopher’s Stone if it hadn’t been for everything that had happened. They would all still be blissfully unaware and unwittingly assisting in potentially ending the world as everyone knew it. As it was, Maes had chased a loose thread that the navy had most definitely not wanted him to chase, and ended up with a bullet in his chest for the trouble. 

Roy had cut all ties with the navy as soon as he had found Maes collapsed halfway down the street from the admiralty building, and whilst he might often look back and wonder what might have been after that moonlit flit to Port Aerugo, he could never bring himself to regret it doing what he had done and both of them ending up joining the life of piracy.

“Now…” Maes purred in his ear, making Roy’s stomach flip-flop. “For the love of God will you go to sleep.”

Roy couldn’t help laughing. 

X

The weather was good for making repairs, bright sunshine and a cool breeze, but not enough wind to make working on the sails and rigging unwieldy and dangerous. A thorough assessment of the damage sustained on their last sortie had shown that the problems were largely superficial, and Phoenix should be fully ship-shape again within just a couple of days. Leaving the crew to tackle the repairs and Maes to supervise restocking for their next and most important voyage, Roy was gathering intelligence. It was all very well having worked out where the Xerxes had wrecked, but that wasn’t going to be of any use if the navy were swarming all over the area. Roy really didn’t want to have to shoot his way out. Or shoot his way in, for that matter. 

“Mustang. It’s been a while.”

Grumman was in his usual haunt, sitting in one corner of the Armstrongs’ bar in the shadows with his hat pulled down over his eyes, trying to affect an air of mystery. Unfortunately, Roy had known him long enough to know that there was no mystery at all to him, he was simply a very shrewd man with a lot of contacts in strange places. Even those completely new to Port Aerugo tended to regard him with raised eyebrows rather than any kind of awe these days. 

“It has, Grumman. Can I get you something?”

“That depends.” Grumman swung his feet down off the table and leaned in. “What do you want in return?”

“Information, Grumman, like always. Preferably useful information and preferably about naval movements in the coming weeks.”

“Well, I think I might be able to help you there. You know my usual.”

With alcohol procured, Mustang returned to Grumman’s information dispensary and settled in for one of the old man’s stories. He was surprised when he didn’t spin off into a tale about his granddaughter’s latest exploits. 

“So, you’ve found it then?”

“Potentially. Either way, I’d rather not have the navy on my back when I go looking for it.”

“No, I can appreciate that. I’ll admit that I haven’t had any reports for a few days, but it’s not looking too bad out there, just the usual patrols, and they don’t normally go as far south as you’ll be heading. At least, I assume that you’ll be heading south?”

Roy made no indication either way. He considered Grumman to be a friend, but information was money in all businesses and he didn’t trust the old fox as far as he could throw him. He knew that he was not the only pirate in Port Aerugo who was on a quest for the Philosopher’s Stone, and he knew that not all of them had the same intentions as he did. 

He hoped that familial loyalty would win out in the end when it came to Grumman, though. His daughter sailed with Armstrong - hence his permanent fixture in her family’s bar - and Armstrong’s opinion of the navy and the Philosopher’s Stone were well-known. Roy certainly wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her by assisting in anything other than the Stone’s ultimate destruction.

“Well, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavours,” Grumman said. “Of course, if you do find what you’re looking for then I’m sure that the residents of Port Aerugo will be expecting you to keep them in rum for a long time to come.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “If I do find what I’m looking for, Grumman, then Hughes and I will be retiring to the country and never setting foot on a ship again.”

Grumman just chuckled. “You’d never do that. You enjoy the call of the sea too much.”

Roy left Grumman to it, paying for another drink for the old man and heading back towards the Phoenix. He didn’t really have any intention to retire on his potential gains from this journey, he was far too cynical to believe in such romantic notions, but he couldn’t deny that he often thought about a life without looking over his shoulder for the navy every five minutes. Perhaps he could be one step closer to that at least. 

X

It was a cool and clear morning when they set sail in search of the goal that they had been chasing for so long, a strong wind blowing them steadily away from Port Aerugo and into the southern seas. It should have been the ideal conditions for starting a voyage, and indeed, most of the crew were in high spirits having had such a good beginning - hopes were high that they would ultimately succeed. 

There was something in the air that made Roy uneasy though. He couldn’t really pinpoint what it was, putting it down to just an alchemist’s instinct. 

“Hey. It’ll be ok. Whatever gets thrown at us, we can weather it.” 

Roy laughed as Maes came up beside him. “I’ve never understood where you get your relentless optimism from.”

“Well, it’s certainly not from you. Being shot by your own side tends to put things in perspective and you learn that life’s too short to be morose. Just think of all the riches that are coming our way. I know, I know, that’s not the reason why you’re doing this, but stop thinking altruistically for a moment and bask in the glory of gold and jewels beyond your wildest imagination.”

“I suppose there’s something comforting in that,” Roy agreed. He looked out at the open sea in front of them again. It would take a few days of sailing before they came into sight of the supposed wreck site, and it didn’t seem like there would be anything getting in their way. Even with Grumman’s intelligence, though, the navy were never to be trusted not to put a spanner in the works. Sometimes Roy thought that they had some kind of sixth sense going on with their uncanny ability to be just where they weren’t wanted. 

Someone hailed Maes and Roy was left alone with his thoughts. He turned back to survey the bustle of the ship’s normal operations. They had started life as a rather rag-tag bunch, many of them leaving the navy for various reasons that Roy had not inquired into, but over time they had come together into an efficient crew who worked well together. Breda was at the helm, keeping Phoenix steady as she cut through the sea, Havoc up in the crow’s nest keeping watch, Catalina and Fuery scampering over the rigging. Roy would trust this crew with his life, and when he thought about what was at stake for them on this latest outing, he knew he would far rather have these people by his side than any of the naval crews he had sailed with in his time.

All the same, he still couldn’t get that uneasy feeling to go away, despite the perfect conditions, still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Perfect conditions for them meant perfect conditions for every other ship that might be out here in the southern waters with potentially nefarious intent.

The other shoe dropped three days into their voyage when the wind began to pick up further.

“Sails!” Havoc yelled down from the crow’s nest.

“What? Shit.” Roy whirled around to look in the direction that Havoc was indicating, finding the bearing he was shouting and extending his telescope. 

“Friendly or not?” Maes had jogged over to him and was leaning over the railing, squinting at the vague white shapes on the horizon. 

“Likely not, looks like a navy flag.” Roy looked back at the helm. “Maintain present course and speed.”

Breda nodded, holding the helm steady as Roy continued to look at the ship that had joined them.

“Dammit, Grumman said that there weren’t any patrols in this area.”

“I know he’s usually pretty reliable but he’s been wrong before. Sometimes the navy just like to mess with us.”

“I swear they’re psychic,” Roy muttered. He held out the telescope to Maes. 

“I don’t know why you’re giving it to me, I’ve got the worst eyesight on the ship.”

“Just take a look.”

Maes dutifully took a look. “I think you’re right. Definitely looks like a navy ship. She’s going at a hell of a lick as well, we’ll be able to see for ourselves shortly.”

“As long as she keeps coming straight and doesn’t turn.” Roy did not want to be broadsided by a full navy cannonade. They were going at a steady pace themselves and if they kept up this way then there was the slim chance that the two ships paths would not cross and the navy ship would end up behind them, playing catch-up and giving them the upper hand. 

“I really don’t like this,” Maes said. “It’s too much of a coincidence for them to be in the same place as us.”

“Well, it’s not exactly a secret that we’ve been hunting the Xerxes all this time, but I thought that our main problem would be competition, not the navy. They must be getting desperate if they’re following up on gossip coming out of Port Aerugo. You’re right, though. I don’t like it at all.” He turned to the rest of the crew, all of whom were now watching the fast approaching sails. “Ready the cannons!”

The crew jumped to it, all those that could be spared racing down to the cannons and beginning to prepare them. Roy really hoped it would come to nothing, but as the navy ship kept bearing down towards them, he knew that it would be in vain.

“It had to be the Bradley, didn’t it? Of all the ships in the fleet, the one that came after us had to be the Bradley.”

The approaching ship was beginning to turn side-on to them. It was a double-edged sword; they had a larger target to hit with their own cannons, but they were now also a larger target for the navy’s. 

The Phoenix had one thing that the navy didn’t, though. The Phoenix had Roy. Leaving Maes in charge on deck, he went below to the guns, checking the fuses as he pulled on his spark gloves. Flames on board a ship full of gunpowder were not normally a good idea, and his choice to learn flame alchemy as a potential alchemist afloat had raised more than a few eyebrows, but his years aboard Phoenix and the many tricky situations he had found himself in had honed his skills considerably. 

The rest of the crew, having seen him in action many times before, dutifully stood back before he snapped, pinpoint flames igniting the fuses just at the precise moments that he needed them. The thunder of the cannon nearly deafened him, but he could see that at least some of the balls had hit their mark. Now it was time for the navy to return fire as they reloaded.

“Incoming!”

Roy heard the earsplitting crunch of a cannonball blasting the railings on deck above him and he grimaced. The ship’s master would not be happy about that one. 

“Sails to starboard!”

Roy swore violently on hearing the exclamation being passed around the ship from the crow’s nest. Somehow they’d managed to get themselves into a trap. This was not how he had envisioned this trip going. They had done so well at avoiding the naval patrols. 

The cannons reloaded, Roy set the fuses again before Maes stuck his head down onto the gun deck and hailed him.

“Captain, we’ve got a problem..”

“I heard. Any identification yet?”

Above them, the crew hit the deck as another volley of cannon fire from the Bradley soared over them. Most of the balls this time seemed to fall short; perhaps they’d overdone it on the powder the first time. 

“No flags,” Maes said. “Wait…”

He vanished up onto the deck again as Breda called out to him, and Roy took advantage of the brief lull of reloading to peer out of one of the gun ports with his telescope. Another ship was indeed bearing down on them from the opposite side, this one fighting against the wind and creaking with the speed that it was putting on. There were no identifying flags on it, and it didn’t appear to be a typical naval ship.

“Captain, we’re being hailed.”

This time it was Fuery coming down onto the gun deck. Roy followed him back up, watching the little flashes of light from the approaching ship.

Need a hand Mustang?

Relief flooded through Roy’s veins as the newcomers unfurled a black flag and swung the ship around. Now that they were closer, he could recognise Briggs Fortress, and he didn’t think he’d ever been so pleased to see Olivier Armstrong in his life. 

X

“Message from the Briggs, Captain. Armstrong and Hawkeye are coming over.”

As fearsome as the Bradley was, the pride of the Amestrian navy that struck annoyance if not fear into the hearts of pirates everywhere, it was no match for two ships working together to scupper it, and the Phoenix and the Briggs had left it floundering and unsteerable with most of its crew bobbing in the water behind them, sailing the same course together for a few miles until they were sure that they were out of harm’s way and could slow down to make any immediately needed repairs.

Fuery threw a line over the side as one of the Briggs’ longboats drew up alongside them, and a couple of minutes later, Olivier and Riza were on the deck. 

“Well, that was bracing,” Olivier said grimly. “Honestly, Mustang, you should know better than to go after something as big as the Xerxes without a consort.”

Pirate ships usually worked alone, after all, there were a limited number of prizes on the seas and they were all in competition for their livelihoods, but it wasn’t unheard of for a couple of crews to team up and go after a particularly lucrative or well-guarded ship in return for sharing the profits. In the case of the Xerxes, Olivier did have a point, especially considering how much naval interest there was in locating the wreck, and the fact that the treasure wasn’t their main objective anyway. 

“Mind you, this is you we’re talking about, and your capacity for idiocy is well-known, so I can’t say that I’m exactly surprised by this.”

Roy sighed but didn’t rise to the bait; he was too grateful for the help that the Briggs crew had provided to argue with Olivier now.

“I didn’t want to publicise things too much. Not everyone is as scrupulous as you and I when it comes to what’s at stake here.”

“Mustang, my thoughts on the navy, the Philosopher’s Stone, and alchemy in general are well known. As much as it pains me to say it, I’ll gladly work with you to keep the bloody thing out of the wrong hands. Anyway, I suppose we should explain our fortuitous presence here.”

“I was going to ask about that,” Maes said, eyeing the two women with equal parts respect and suspicion. “Has Grumman been spilling his secrets?”

“In a manner. When he received intelligence that the navy were on the move into the south, specifically where you were going and where he’d told you they weren’t likely to go, he felt it courteous to let you know, and since we were in the area, Riza persuaded me to take off on a mad goose chase after you.” Olivier shot a glance sideways at her lover. “The things I do for you. Anyway, it looks like it was lucky we arrived when we did.”

Roy nodded. “Thank you.” 

The four of them moved into Roy’s cabin to discuss the route that they were taking and the approximate location of the treasure that they had finally found. It felt strange to be sharing it so openly having spent so many months trying to keep their research under wraps, but they were so close to the end of it all now. Roy really didn’t want to face another situation like the one they’d just narrowly escaped without being able to make repairs to the ship. They couldn’t afford to turn back towards Port Aerugo now, not with the navy on their tail already.

Riza looked over the maps, giving everything her expert navigator’s eye.

“I’ve no idea how you managed to piece it all together,” she said, “but it all looks watertight.”

“Well, in that case, shall we get going?” Maes asked. “This little skirmish has lost us some valuable time and we need to course correct. If the Bradley's out here then she won’t be alone, and I’d rather get as much of a head start as possible.”

“See, your quartermaster talks sense,” Olivier complained as she and Riza made their way back towards their longboat. “You should listen to him.”

“Yes, Roy. You should listen to me.”

Roy just smacked Maes in the arm.

“Ow! Man down! Man down!”

“It’ll be man overboard if you’re not careful,” Roy growled.

In the longboat, Riza rolled her eyes as she and Olivier began to row back to the Briggs.

“Sometimes I wonder how those two manage to get anything done.”

X

“Is this it? I have to say, Mustang, you’re not filling me with an awful lot of confidence here.”

They had reached the supposed site of the Xerxes wreck, the Briggs coming up alongside the Phoenix and dropping anchor as Olivier shouted across the prow. So far they had not come across any other navy vessels in the area, but the Bradley was the fastest in the fleet so it made sense that she would catch up to them first. Roy was already working out a more circuitous route back to Port Aerugo to try and avoid the other ships that had no doubt been sent after the advance guard.

On the face of it, he had to admit that Olivier had a point. The place that they had come to was little more than a large jagged rock sticking up out of the water, seemingly innocuous. It certainly wasn’t an island large enough to have treasure buried on it, but given some of the lethal-looking protrusions, he could well see why the Xerxes would have wrecked here on a dark and stormy night.

“According to all the research I’ve done, this is where she wrecked. The sea levels and tides have to be just right for the rock to be visible about the waterline.”

Riza leaned over the rail and peered down into the still waters below. 

“I can’t see anything down there but then, we don’t know how deep it might go.”

“We’re not looking for the wreck itself anyway,” Roy pointed out. “It’ll be nothing more than rotten planks by now. We’re looking for what was on the wreck, and it should be on that rock.”

“For the love of God, Mustang, where?”

“You’ll see. Hughes, are you coming?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Captain.” Maes followed him over to where Breda and Fuery were making a longboat ready to cast off, and soon they were rowing in towards the rock. It was a fraught journey, the waves lapping against the rock causing odd eddies that threatened to bash them against the side, and the ever present threat of being snuck up on by the navy was weighing heavy in the back of Roy’s mind all the time. 

“You’re a sly one, Mustang.” 

They had reached a fissure in the rock, invisible to them from the distance of the ships and only appearing once they were up close. If Roy’s theory proved true, then it was inside this fissure that the treasure of Xerxes would be found. With the fissure so well-hidden and the rock half-submerged most of the time, it would be the perfect resting place, and there was little wonder that no-one else had tracked it down before.

They tied up the boats and clambered awkwardly up onto the rock, lighting lanterns before edging their way into the fissure. It was tight going at first, but opened out after a few yards to give them more breathing space. Maes was leading the way, Riza bringing up the rear, leaving Roy with Olivier in the middle. He could feel her eyes boring into his back, and he was glad that the trip would hopefully be a short one. The tunnel angled down a steep incline and Roy could tell that they were below the waterline now. Hopefully they’d be able to get back up again. 

“Captain.”

Maes stopped abruptly, causing Roy to nearly run into him, and he peered over his quartermaster’s shoulder, grinning.”

“Ye of little faith, Armstrong.”

It was not the massive haul that legend had built it up into, but Roy had been expecting that. With something like the Xerxes, everything about it had been blown so out of proportion that the tales had reached the stage of the thing being rumoured to have been carrying so much gold that any ordinary ship would have sunk under the sheer weight of it. 

It was still a decent prize though; even after splitting with the crew of the Briggs it would be a hefty nest egg for them all. 

“Enough to retire on, do you think?” Maes asked. “Get a little place in the country and live comfortably?” 

“Potentially. We’ll have to get Falman and Fuery to make a proper account of it back in Aerugo.” They moved further into the small cavern where the treasure had been stored. The gold and jewels were not their main concern and all four of them knew it. Riza turned back to get help from the ships to shift the loot, and Olivier came into the cavern.

“Right, let’s find this blessed stone and get out of here before we’ve got the navy breathing down our necks again.”

Looking for a red stone in a chest full of jewels was never going to be the easiest of tasks, but the sooner they started sifting, the sooner they could be sure of making sure that the thing  was lost forever. Roy really didn’t like the idea of having it hiding in plain sight on the Phoenix or the Briggs for any longer than necessary. 

“Got it.” Maes held up a leather satchel unearthed from the bottom of one of the chests and rolled his eyes when Olivier and Roy both gave him incredulous looks. “Yes, I know it’s not the stone. Captain’s log. It might give us a clue where to look.”

He began filing through waterlogged pages as Olivier and Roy continued to work through separating out everything that remotely resembled a ruby until Riza returned with a few men from both ships, forming a chain to pass everything out of the cavern and along the fissure. 

“We’ve got sails on the horizon,” she warned. “Miles reckons we’ve got just under three hours before they’re in firing range and they’re riding low, they’ve got the heavy guns.”

“All right, we can focus on finding objects of mass destruction later, let’s move on out.”

Both crews were used to clearing loot quickly; it never did to take your time grabbing merchandise off a boarded ship when the navy might pounce at any moment, and soon the cavern was cleaned out and the two ships were weighing anchor, moving away from the rock in convoy. The navy sails were still on their tail and the lookouts were keeping sharp eyes on them, but they were not yet in a position where it looked like they were gaining, and Roy was confident of his ability to lose them once they were back in more familiar waters. If necessary they could split up, each of them leading a navy ship away. Maes was still reading the captain’s log in a desperate search for something that could help them.

Roy watched the expressions that crossed over Maes’s face as he skimmed over the last couple of pages of text. He seemed to run the entire gamut from overjoyed to incredulous to angry and back again.

“Roy, take a look at this.” He came over, handing off a couple of damp sheets of parchment. The ink had run and the writing was barely legible, but Roy could still make out the captain of the Xerxes’s final message.

The rest of the treasure I shall leave in this rock. Those canny enough to find it are welcome to it. I myself have no further need of it. To those who come in search of the Philosopher’s Stone, I can offer only disappointment. There is no stone. There never was. It was a legend we concocted and fed to strike fear into the hearts of those who might set upon us for our cargo. Take the jewels and leave all foolish attempts of immortality and power beyond imagination behind. 

May the wind always be at your back. VH. 1756

Roy had to read it three times before the message sank in. On the one hand, this entire outing had been for nothing. It meant that they had left the navy for nothing, Maes had been shot for nothing. On the other hand, they didn’t need to worry about the Philosopher’s Stone falling into the navy’s hands now, and they had a boatload of treasure to boot. It was all so unbelievably ludicrous that Roy couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“Roy?” Maes was looking at him as if he’d grown a second head. “Roy, are you ok?”

Roy nodded, pulling Maes in close out of sheer relief that it was all over. Maes’s arms came around him, the safe haven that he’d always been, and Roy sighed. 

“We’re definitely retiring after this.”

“I’m already planning the tomato farm.” 

They stayed in their embrace for a little while longer until Roy finally broke away. 

“We should tell Armstrong that she can call off the search in her share of the loot.”

“I’ll get Fuery to send a message over. Honestly, trust us to go on a righteous mission to rid the world of a dangerous legendary artefact only to find that it never existed in the first place.”

It was an odd irony, but as they looked out over the open sea in front of them, Roy could not bring himself to care. All was well that ended well, and with the news from Havoc in the crow’s nest that they had lost the navy ships following them, all was definitely ending well and heading in the direction of a bright new beginning.

[projectalbum]

First 100 down. 96. “Rockin’ the Suburbs,” 97. “Ben Folds Live,” 98. “Songs for Silverman,” 99. “Way to Normal,” 100. “Stems and Seeds,” 101. “Lonely Avenue,” 102. “So There” by Ben Folds

I owe Nick Hornby for the introduction.

The High Fidelity author’s collection of essays on pop music, Songbook, made the case for Ben Folds’ contributions to the canon in a chapter on “Smoke.” Hornby writes so persuasively, in a deceptively casual style that I’m perhaps a bit too pretentious to ever approach with my own pop culture writing. There’s a lot of music covered in his book that I failed to investigate on my own. But that particular passage must have triggered something in the back of my mind, some residual impression of “Brick,” perhaps, which sent me to the Web for those first BFF tracks (none of which were “Smoke,” by the way, though I agree with Hornby’s appraisal of its lyrical strength).

It quickly became a total fandom— I now have all the official LP’s, band and solo, and the EP’s are floating in the digital ether of hard drives and burned discs. I even bought the soundtrack to the little-remembered Dreamworks quirky CG animal picture Over The Hedge, to which Folds contributed several original tracks (a soundtrack that marked his most recent collaboration with William Shatner, a pairing that also yielded a full-length, Has Been, which is a simultaneously ironic AND unironic great listen.) No one is going to bestow the crown of ultimate Ben Folds fanboy on my head— I’ve ONLY seen him live twice, and neither time was even with a symphony orchestra! Nevertheless, I’ve been following his output for a good decade, and my record is solid.

His records are also solid (as is this excellent segue), exploring the outer limits of musical flavors available to a largely pop-oriented guy with a piano and an ear for harmony. Rockin’ the Suburbs (#96), his first post-Five record (exempting Fear of Pop: Volume 1, an experimental doodle from the era of the Messner recordings, which I only mention to smugly show off my bonafides yet again), incorporates synthesizer squeals, a Korn-parody guitar breakdown, treated keyboards, and strings, but his ivories are still at the forefront. His lyrics here are the ultimate template for the rest of his career, featuring: the irreverent humor of a class cut-up (like “Rockin’ The Suburbs’” self-aware chorus or the climactic, harmonized shout of “Motherfucker!” that ends “Fired”), the incisive character sketches of a short story author (“Fred Jones, Pt. 2” is a mini-masterpiece of well-observed details, but I think “Carrying Cathy” is downright shattering), and the delicate balance of sentiment any memoirist must strike (“Still Fighting It” hits the bullseye, but “The Luckiest” is a bit too goopy for me).

I have always had a big soft spot for Songs for Silverman (#98), which has been painted by some critics and BFF fans as a turn into mopey adult contemporary. There are a couple of skippable tracks, for sure, but it doesn’t sound as far from the old days as the doubters believe. After handling most of the instruments on Suburbs by himself, and doing a quite literal solo tour- just the man and his Baby Grand- as documented on the superb Ben Folds Live (#97), Folds missed the sonic chemistry that came from having a band in the studio. Though Jessee and Sledge had followed their own paths (the former touring with Sharon Van Etten, the latter adopting an existence of a lower key than the music business), Folds assembled a more than capable bass/drums duo to pump up the jazzy breakdown in “Bastard” and the chorus of “You to Thank.”

“Landed,” even without the orchestral strings that he later decided overwhelmed the melody, has rightfully earned its place in the classic Folds firmament. Hearing the introductory notes at my first Ben Folds show was enough to conjure a lump in my throat. Seemed weird for me to get unduly emotional about it: the chorus is upbeat (complete with signature “Ba-ba-ba-ba”s) and the story of a man emerging from a controlling relationship is not something I’ve experienced or even witnessed, so I can only interpret this as a reaction to the beauty of hearing a masterful pop song.

As the Web became more of a presence in daily life, and piracy was taking huge bites out of the music industry, Folds ably kept pace with the evolving relationship between an artist and his fans. That included embracing the nascent social media networks- which by the mid-2000s meant MySpace- and posting new music before it hit the streets. During my first couple years of college, I had one of these tricked-out profiles myself. This may have been the way I first heard, in 2008, the “fake” tracks.

Alternately crude and tremblingly earnest, they were a collection of “leaked” songs ostensibly from Folds’ forthcoming album, Way To Normal (#99). There was “Bitch Went Nutz,” a 1st person narrative about a Republi-bro scandalized in front of his peers by his Anarcho-Socialist fuck buddy that plays like the most profane “Weird Al” Yankovic pastiche ever. And “Cologne (Piano Orchestra Version),” a stunningly pretty concerto-ballad that gets absurdly overblown with a chanting male chorus and a dozen keyboards playing at once. And a handful of winkingly self-serious social justice ballads. All written and recorded, it was later revealed, in about a day, and launched into the bootleg blogosphere as a prank.

These were eventually officially released on Stems and Seeds (#100), alongside alternately-mastered versions of the “real” songs. The legitimate tracks found on the official LP are only slightly more tasteful, with a somewhat explicit Divorce Record vibe on kiss-offs like “You Don’t Know Me” (with Regina Spektor lending her magic) and “Brainwascht” (about the battle lines that can be drawn between mutual friends of split couples). When the lyrics are slightly regrettable (like the stereotype-mining “Bitch Went Nuts”), the melodies usually carry it. Exceptions would be the intentionally-grating “Errant Dog,” and the limp celebrity satire “Free Coffee” (skippable on record, but in live shows, Folds illustrates how he gets the treated piano sound by placing Altoids tins on his strings, which is a bit of nerdy fun).

Things came pleasingly full circle when it was announced that Folds was co-writing an entire album with Nick Hornby. The mutual appreciation society of these two artists had become a collaboration outlined right on Lonely Avenue's (#101) cover art: “Ben Folds Adds Music and Melody to Nick Hornby’s Words.” It’s a magical working relationship mirrored in their biographical tribute “Doc Pomus,” about the irascible musician who penned classic rock standards like “This Magic Moment” and “Save The Last Dance For Me” alongside Mort Shuman. This sense of pop history permeates 70’s-influenced arrangements like “Password” and “Belinda,” the latter about a Manilow-esque crooner reflecting on the love that inspired his greatest hit, who he callously abandoned for a fling with a flight attendant sporting “big breasts, a nice smile, [and] no kids, either.”

My 2 favorite tracks are a study in tonal opposites: “Claire’s Ninth,” a delicately affecting portrait of a young girl in the middle of a chilly but courteous divorce, and “Saskia Hamilton,” a gleefully nerdy ode to the most phonetically pleasing poet’s name ever. Their musical commonality is that neither one is a slow-tempo plaintive ballad, which have their place, but are the Folds tunes that I tend to skip in his later releases. “Claire’s” chords are jazzy and gently driving, with gorgeous vocal harmonies in the chorus; “Saskia” is frantic, driven by old school Moog synthesizer, with quirky flourishes like the female opera singer making a vocal cameo in the breakdown— it feels like a mutual homage between the song’s authors to “Weird Al”’s more esoteric original compositions.

So There (#102), while technically reaching full-length status with the inclusion of a real-deal “Concerto For Piano and Orchestra,” feels oddly slight. It was hyped by the artist himself as a unique new collaboration: pianist and new classical ensemble making pop songs together. He had experience with performing full-orchestra arrangements of his older songs (as on the excellent DVD “Ben Folds and WASO Live in Perth”) and overdubbing strings on new recordings, but this he advertised as a from-the-jump co-written project with yMusic, a sextet of players bringing strings, woodwinds, and brass. The Chamber Pop tracks that result have their delicate beauty, but the album resists falling into a snoozy easy-listening trap by alternating the ballads with the kind of sprightly, pazz and jop numbers that similarly kept Silverman moving.

It’s all just so… pleasant, and it seems to slip out of my mind and soon as I’ve heard it. If you were to strip-mine it for a Ben Folds playlist, I would pick out the title track for one, with its trilling strings, burbling brass, and father/daughter harmonizing. The instrumental section after the first chorus- what it might be appropriate to call the 2nd Movement- gets closest to fulfilling the promise inherent in the album’s Chamber Pop experiment. I might sound overly harsh on this release— re-listening to it while writing this post, there’s nothing that’s a huge turnoff, or a waste of time (except maybe the metaphorically one-note novelty track “F10-D-A,” which, granted, doesn’t outstay its welcome, running a second under 2 minutes). However, nothing there really sets my heart on fire like the first time I heard the swirling arpeggio of “Zak and Sara” (first through the raucous solo piano version on Live, then the filled-out studio recording on Suburbs), or the chorus of “Landed,” or first “ba ba BA ba ba ba!”ed my heart out as a human “Army" trumpet in the crowd of my first Ben Folds show.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Ok yeah we’re gonna record thoughts and feelings about P5 as we go, because I know me, and when I’m all done I’m going to want to go back to my recorded opinions about the early stages of the game and roll around in my own ignorance.

Spoilers for the first couple of hours of gameplay (up to the establishment of the Magician social link).  Do not spoil me beyond that in replies/reblogs so help me god.

This is Persona does Leverage and I am so excited.

Once upon a time, there was a meek and unremarkable boy living a meek life in an unremarkable town.  He never knew, because nobody had ever told him, that there was a badass living deep in his own heart.  It never came up.  He didn’t get into trouble, not once, not ever.  He believed in justice and the system that looks out for the weak and the meek and frightened women being forced into cars by drunk, powerful men.

(once upon a time, there was a boy, and he was a fool)

Nothing in Tokyo feels real.  The alleys are crowded, narrow, full of people.  The subway is a labyrinth.  This rented room, this garret apartment, full of rust and accumulated junk, this forgotten storage room, isn’t part of any world where people live.  You walk through school and everybody whispers--did you hear about the new boy.  He’s a violent criminal.  He’s a gang kingpin.  He carries a knife everywhere he goes, and he’ll kill you as soon as look at you if you piss him off.  That can’t be you.  That has nothing to do with your real life (your town, your parents, your school--none of that is yours any more.  Now you get this.)  The castle of magic and shadows is no more impossible and unreal a dream than this new school and this new life that’s supposed to be yours now anyway.

The protag is, at heart, deep in his core, a believer in those with power using it to protect those in need.  Not necessarily a believer that they do, now, any more--but they should.  That’s how the world is supposed to work.  You can’t just do nothing.  He’s got power of his own, now.

It turns out that the protag does carry a knife everywhere he goes, in the metaverse.  Apparently he’s a thief now.  Apparently the part all the way down in his core that’s been shouting so loud since he first heard the muffled sounds of a woman calling for help in the distance on a dark night is raging full of strength and magic.  Apparently he can do things, can fight, can rage, and nothing is stopping him, and look, nothing about this world where he lives in now matches anything he’s ever lived in the past sixteen and a half years of his life.  So now he’s a phantom thief and a rebel, and he has power the likes of which shocks even the talking cat, and everybody at school says they hear he carries a knife everywhere, and if one materializes in his hand when he finds himself in a cape and a mask in the world of the mind--he’s doing this now.  Apparently this is the person he’s going to be in this strange new impossible dream-world.  Okay.  Guess we’re doing this.  Sure.

This is a story about bonds and rebellion.  This is a story about being trapped.  It’s about justice and what’s fair, yes, but more than anything this is going to be a story about structures of power--not just about the individuals who hold it, but about the castles and palaces and empires they build around them, about silence and complacency, hierarchies and systems and all of the layers that smother and trap people in place.

The protagonist is here to break those chains, don’t you know, to tear down the castle walls and break the palaces, to fell the kings and punish the emperors.  The protagonist is here to learn to rebel and break through those empires, one by one, but he’s still in chains to his own fate.  He’s doomed by the blade of his own revolution.

You don’t have social links.  Your relationships are not forging bonds.  Your relationships are the wings and the tools you’re meant to use to break free and break yourself out.  Your friends and acquaintances are collaborators.  They steps and allies and tools to use.  (We will love them, because this is a Persona game and that’s how it works, but--will we love them more than we use them?)

(“You were sold out by one of your own,” they said, remember?)

(Captain William Kidd was imprisoned and questioned and probably tortured and never gave up any of his backers, his allies, the various rich men in England who financed his piracy and who kept their heads down and their hands hidden, right up through Kidd’s execution.  Carmen loved her man and then left him from another, and he cried fury and betrayal and cut her down then and there on the opera stage.  These children are so fucked.)

It’s not ‘Persona goes darker and edgier’, because it’s not actually darker than the epic isolation depression despair of Persona 3.  It’s maybe a little grittier.

Persona 3 was a wash of murky green and blue and darkness, existence and fear and loneliness and despair.  Persona 3 was the kind of depression that’s all emotion and numb emptiness, and everything is either as vast as the entirety of human existence, or tiny and personal and super-individual, with all the scope jumbled and knocked askew and nothing in between.  It was not brighter and it was not kinder, but the light was very different.

This is grittier in the way of a high contrast photograph in hyper-sharp focus, black and white edges on every individual blade of grass.  This is not the endless sea of despair.  This is every goddamn day that you wake up and figure out how to grind your way through to tomorrow.  This is a world where people connect all the time, for all the good it does them.  This is a world where rape is real, and abuse is named, and the suicide attempts are not metaphors.  The enemy is not the abstract wash of numb depression and existential despair--it’s real, and it’s concrete, and it’s so very, very complex that dismantling it feels next to impossible.  And we’re taking it on anyway.

(Your personas are human, every one of them so far, not counting the shades of stories and human unconscious the protag’s started picking up from the wayside.  Characters from novels and plays and actual humans who actually lived, not even 400 years ago, not in myth or legend but actual recorded history.  There’s a little myth and a little magic about them all, but they’re human human human at the core, and they didn’t fight gods or take their blessing, they fought other men, and sometimes won.)

And look, high-contrast ultra-sharpness doesn’t necessarily mean more realistic.  You were rescued from the magical castle by a talking cat.  Nobody has blue hair unless they dyed it that way, but you slip through shadows with the billow of your coat behind you like a cape, and all the visuals are sharp and stylized with shadows and angles and black and white and red all over.  This is half Victorian romantic crime fiction, with your tiny garret above the cafe in the city where you were sent for disgracing the family in public, and half pulpy graphic novel, the pre-superhero kind.  This is still very much genre.

This is Persona-does-Leverage.  There are genre conventions and I expect them to be followed--and look, I have seen all of Leverage and I have seen it all three to five times through.  If the story begins with your hero shoved none-too-gently into a cell by a couple of officers who don’t mind putting a knee in his gut, a fist to his jaw, his ribs, a few new bruises and a little blood for their troubles.  If the questioning starts with, “you were sold out by one of your own.”  If that’s how the story begins, and then we slide back through the days(weeks months year) to the very beginning of this disaster--

then that cell is exactly where our protagonist wants to be, and we are teetering on the edge of the grand reveal as every last thing falls into place.

I want it to get to that point very badly.  That’s the happy ending this genre tells me we ought to get, for all we’ll probably need to battle some dire deity of corruption and despair even after that point anyway.  I like that story.

And here’s what else I like: it means that somewhere over the course of the year, the Phantom Thieves become a group that can plan intricately together, that can grift a con where they turn on each other and trust each other to play their own sides.  It means that they can send their leader deliberately into the jaws of something dangerous and painful all alone.  They know he can take it.  They respect him for that.

Of course he can take it.  Look, this is a story with characters who wear their bruises and their knee braces and their scars every goddamn day.  Injuries from metaverse battles are probably going to magically heal themselves overnight, but this is a story where all of the characters are going to have scars before they even start.

Honestly I am so excited to see this group take shape.  I am so excited for these furious, broken rebel children and their revolution.

They don’t use their own names, their own clothes, their own faces when they fight.  They are not SEES, who never had time to be anyone but themselves, and to hell with anyone who cares, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.  (SEES could barely tolerate each other sometimes, tried to kill each other, but found a way to grab on as tight and iron as they possibly could, bonds so hard to make and the only thing that could save their lives.)  They are so incredibly far from the IT, who fought and set themselves to always always being exactly themselves, one way or another.  (The Investigation Team loved each other chaotically and brightly and openly, tripping over each other like puppies and fighting for each other like wolves.)  I cannot wait to see them.

Did you notice, did you notice, the first persona summoning--it’s not just a discovery, it’s a contract.  These kids are making a contract with their own inner heart of rebellion.  They’re making deals with themselves in exchange for power.  They have lost everything they loved, one by one--their goals, their place in the world, the people they care about, even control over their own bodies.  They have lost the things that they once thought made them who they were, and they make this deal, and they become somebody else.  Skull.  Panther.  Mona.  The Joker.  They remake themselves anew.

And that is going to mean so much for their relationships with each other! I can only guess how that’s going to play out and I can’t wait.

I continue to have more and more thoughts, but it’s very late and I need to go to bed very, very badly.  More of this tomorrow after the Epic Grind.  We’ll see if I change my mind about any of it just yet.

[nicoladesignresearchjournal-blog]

Why Research?

Junior designers are often given the researcher role in design companies

Ability to quickly inform yourself about each new brief you undertake.

Knowing the brief context of a job will help you to design into it.

Make unusual connections

Being Creative is about looking for two things that don’t fit together; combining them and hoping that sparks fly.

The more unusual the things you are able to to pull and combine together the more creative the solution will be.

Helps distance you from everyone else

If we all have the same sources of inspiration (eg. Pinterest) and creating things we will end up with similar results.

The broader your research; the wider your general knowledge the better you will be as a communication designer.

As a communication designer you can’t go down a narrow pathway; you have to be broadly interested in the world around you.

What is Practice?

An activity grounded in a series of habits

Not all habits are practices

Involves teaching

Practices are things which are schooled and which you are able to continue

Design is a profession; people practice that profession

Connects to others who consciously share the habit

A good thing about working inside a practice is that it connects you with other people that do the same thing.

By the time I finish the 3 years of this degree I will have a lot of common ground with the people around me.

That fact the the teaching has got a lot of historical basis to it; connects you to older designers which are part of the same practice as well.

An area that has shared habits is sometimes called a discipline

Foucault ( discipline) Bourdieu ( concept: habitus)

French Theory heavy

Foucault: How society disciplines people into particular ways of thinking

Bourdieu: All the things that you unconsciously carry with you; that have been schooled but that you are not aware of.

The habitus of our particular society give us a particular grounded thinking which we just pick up- good to differentiate and be aware

When do we practice design research?

Understanding consumer preferences (Design research equips you to do)

Design research as a topic has come out of industrial design

Industrial design is big on understanding consumer preferences because if you are going to make a product that is going to sell to millions of people and make billions of dollars for a company; you want to be very sure that it is going to work- intensive research into consumer preferences.

Communication Designers particularly in small firms tend to be more gung- ho about understanding consumer preferences.

Finding out the background context of a design job

Seeing what alternatives already exist

Quickly be able locate lots of alternative ideas so you aren’t inadvertently plagiarising somebody else.

Good research helps you do this fast

Expanding our sources of inspiration

How do we practice research?

Like design there is no exact template

Confident researchers develop their own approaches

Helps if there is a shared basis

The same idea of research and have a conversation about it

Sacrifice a little independence to collectively ability to help one another

Provided by the metaphor of “ a journey of discovery.

Every piece of research that you do should involve discovering something you didn’t know before.

No point in researching when you have the answer.

Always a process of moving to discover something new

Albert Cuyp, 1640, A senior Merchant of the Dutch East India Company and his wife

Invented Capitalism during Colonialism

NZ has a direct connection

Isaac Gilsemans, 1642, “Murderer’s Bay”. A drawing of Abel Tasman’s Encounter with Maori in Golden Bay.

The Dutch East India Company into exploration, was not scientifc or without personal interest, they wanted to trade.

They tasked Tasman with heading to the south to find the great continent and make trading connections with the people that live there.

Tasman sailed but missed Australia,then Hit tasmania, crossed the Tasman sea and arrived in Golden Bay where had this encounter with maori that went very badly and after that after time he wanted to make land as he went up the coast of NZ he encountered Maori who he interpreted as extremely unfriendly. Therefore did not land and sailed back and go into trouble with the DUtch East India Company who did not like the fact that he had a couple of years to sail around the world and had not made any trading contacts.

Few thing about Tasmans voyage which mean that its exploration and research rather than piracy:

Researchers can also be pirates

Pre- requistes neeed to be a good researcher

Curiosity

Won’t get to the started point

Openess, dedidcation, imagination

THe ability recognise the potential in a situation and believe you have the wherewithall to do something with it

VOC monogram

First globally recognised logo

How were Europeans curious about the rest of the world?

Maps tell us a lot- what they new about the world geographically

Abraham Ortelius, 1572, World Map

In order to move from general curiosity to thinking we are going to do something about it; you have to do a whole lot of background work

Background - preparing

Qualities: focus, thoroughness, wit

The ability to think on your feet- quickly and have interesting humorous ways- wit

Try to find out what we already know about this situation. (the map)

Trying to understand your own context- what can you do ( what size ship)

Have to question and play with the existing interpretations. - hypothesis ( We think there is a southern continent we will go and hope, If we head down there we might find some more people to trade with.

Select the tools

Practical- getting yourself ready to do research is an important skill

Contextualising- mapping the project

After preparing the specific details need to look at the bigger picture.

Preparing yourself for the unexpected; Knowing  as much as you can of what to expect

Planning, creativity, improvisation

Understanding the context of history, culture, ideology,

Knowing what your own limitations are and what preconceptions you bring

What lens will you bring to the research- will affect the way you see the new stuff that you encounter

Collecting - Exploring the Territory interesting part

When you start the journey and go collecting evidence; go looking for new stuff.

Means that you have to be resilient; difficult part; encountering the unknown

Easy to get scared, need persistence & excitement

Survey the territory, find evidence, collect materials

The ability to look, listen, read, write, draw- come into researching.

Feeling your way, because you’re never going to know what the answer is; always hitting new stuff just have to wing it quite a lot of the time.

Important to question all the time

Humans are programmed to ask questions

When you are 3,4,5 years old you ask questions all the time; get sick of parents saying shut up to all our questions; then we stop asking them. Then we sit in from of the tv and we can’t ask questions; so we lose our ability to question new things we encounter.

Keep asking, and research the most important skill to have.

Reflecting- Analysing the Findings

Collecting information, gained experience

Figure out what does that mean, Have to be good at reflection and rigorous

Find how disconnected pieces of information connect together

What are the themes

Extracting

Collecting- Synthesising Findings

Categorising Info

Getting rid of interesting but irrelevant information

Hard part discovering information but can’t use it as part of the narrative

Publishing- Sharing Findings

A researchers job is to share the findings

We grow collectively by knowing what other people have encountered and build on their experiences

Have to be persuasive & write clearly- you want people to understand

Craft the outcome

What distinguishes you from being a pirate

Pirates only do things for themselves

Just interested in finding the Gold, not interested in sharing the gold

Researchers get the gold and share it

Howard Pyle, 1911, Who shall be Captain?

Where do I Begin?

To become a researcher you need to:

Decide on the type of journeys you want to undertake

Start locating home base- what have i done already

Curiosity Map

What am I curious about in my life so far?

What do I enjoy doing?

Stage 1- Mapping your interests

The degree of interest- the bigger the shape

Your interests are a drop in a large ocean

There are still heaps of areas I am still yet to explore (even as you get older)

The joy of discovery- for every 1 thing you find, you discover 10 things you don’t know

The unknown can be boring because it’s not an interest and a threat because we feel stupid

Can get in the way of you having growth experiences

The danger is that the our areas of interest become our comfort zone and you find all sorts of excuses not to move outside it.

Eg. too hard, I’ll look stupid and they’ll laugh at me, being scared

Instead look at it like its potential for new stuff that can help you to become more creative.

Being at Uni is about dealing with those feelings

Allowing yourself to risk looking stupid in order to try new things.

I can do it- yet

Your circumstances and your interests keep on changing- affected by your surroundings

Take the opportunity of university to expand your interests

Curiosity is a fundamental skill - instead of googling discover your inner 5 year old and learn how to be curious again.

Stage 2- Mapping out areas to explore

What do I do?

What am I curious about?

Where are the interesting edges & connections?

Where are the areas that I can expand?

Where you want to take your journeys?

Use uni to help you get there